


Scylla

by Katzedecimal



Series: Beast of Berwyn [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Interspecies, Other, prisoner
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-08
Updated: 2012-09-08
Packaged: 2017-11-13 19:16:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/506798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katzedecimal/pseuds/Katzedecimal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Forty years ago, a visitor came to Earth.  Forty years later, Mycroft Holmes has a permanent guest, now reminiscing on how that situation came to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scylla

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kalimyre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalimyre/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Pet](https://archiveofourown.org/works/449987) by [Kalimyre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalimyre/pseuds/Kalimyre). 



> I read schmoopy tentacle pr0n, I get angsty plotbunnies *flail*  
> Nobody ever asks me where I get my ideas. Ever. :3

I don't remember my name. 

It's been so long since I've heard it; it's been so long since I've heard anything like my language. I was taken not long after I became adult. I had just turned to male but I had yet to court a female. To be truthful, I was awkward and outcast - it would have been difficult for me to court a mate anyways. Then I was taken, and all hope of finding someone to love vanished with the sight of my homeworld. 

The slave ship crashed here, on this world. The pilots were killed and so were most of the other slaves. Those of us who survived were rescued by the native inhabitants - or so we thought. We sang their praises as they pulled us from the wreckage, thanked them as they doctored our wounds... How could we have known? We were taken into rooms underground and saw the sky no more. 

We were not liberated; we were prisoners. Our dwellings were small cells, cages really. There were no ports or windows, only artificial lights. I had no sense of the passing of time. There were chronometers, "clocks", which I eventually learned to read, but I had no concept of what they were telling me. A.M, P.M... I had no understanding. Native inhabitants in white garments came to take samples of our tissues and fluids. Eventually I came to understand that the sounds they made were actually language but it didn't matter - they didn't speak to me. 

One by one, the other survivors died. Their bodies were taken away and dissected. Sometimes, I watched; some of the native inhabitants thought nothing of dissecting a person in front of their comrades. Eventually I realised the truth: They didn't recognise us as people. And they didn't think we had feelings. 

That was how I passed time on this world. I picked up some of the language and learned to read some of it, but I cannot make the sounds. It still didn't matter - hardly anybody talked to me. Don't get me wrong, some of the native inhabitants were very nice, even kind. Some interacted with me, taught me games.. but they thought of me as a hatchling doing tricks. They referred to me as The Durlan, because I resembled a character from a picture book. I saw one of the pictures once; the resemblance is superficial, at best.

Time passed and I was alone but for the native inhabitants who continued to take my tissues and fluids and teach me to do tricks. There were hostilities and arguments and some of them were regarding me. Then an incident happened and I was badly injured. I was crying in pain and bleeding from multiple deep lacerations; one of the native inhabitants took pity on me and sent for a healer. 

I had seen this planet's sun only once, when I was first rescued. When the healer was brought to me, I was reminded. His hair was yellow like this world's sun and his eyes were blue like its sky. I had learned that the native inhabitants contort their facial features to convey contexts and emotions, and I had learned to read those contortions, to some extent - his smile was warm and kind and his energy was compassionate. He touched me gently and he talked to me. And he was talking to me like a person. He touched me like a person, too - not like a specimen. Or like a monster. I have never forgotten that, or him.

Then a time came when I was moved. I was taken from the cell that had been my home for so long. put into a lorry, and taken a long way away. I was unloaded and put into another cell. I was in another place, called "Baskerville" - I don't know what it means and it didn't matter. My existance continued as it was. I was still a specimen, still an experiment. And I was still a monster. 

Then something happened, starting a sequence of events that changed my existance and led to my present circumstances: Two men infiltrated Baskerville by subterfuge. They were led about on a tour and my cell was hastily camoflaged - they did not see me, but I saw them, and I was shocked to recognise one of them as my healer! He looked older, so much older, but his smile, his eyes, and his energy were the same. How I wish I could have greeted him but it was not to be - he and his night-haired companion turned to leave. Later I learned that they had been up to no good. Later still I learned that it was Baskerville that had been up to no good. The subterfuge of my healer and his companion had brought audit and upheaval onto Baskerville, but to me they were avatars of blessing: Because of them, _he_ found me. 

He heard me singing. I don't know how; most of the native inhabitants cannot hear me sing, it appears I sing outside the range of their hearing. But not him. He heard me and brushed aside their frankly bodgey attempts to camoflage my cell. He did not seem like much, to me - taller than most of the native inhabitants, fairly broad, in his middle age (near as I can judge human age, anyways), with thin ginger hair - nor did I appear to him as anything other than a monster. The attendant on duty mentioned that I do tricks and play games and he made a few comments. I was bored and a little irritated, so I brought out my chessboard and set up the pieces, then opened as white. He seemed a little surprised, then answered as black. After a few minutes he sat back and said "Huh! Checkmate in fourteen moves." 

Twelve, I said. Rather, I drew it on the floor beside the chessboard. My answer puzzled him and he sought confirmation, so I showed him how it would play out, moving his pieces as well as my own. Checkmate in 12 moves. Then he sat back and stared at the board, then at me, and said "That was not a trick." In that moment, he talked to me like a person. 

He came back to visit me many times, in different garments. Eventually I realised that many of his visits were by subterfuge - he was sneaking in to visit me. He talked to me and played chess with me and sometimes he would touch me. I looked forward to seeing him and he seemed loathe to leave when it was time. That was when I realised, he was also a lonely outcast, whose existance flowed from moment to moment without demarcation or colour. 

His name among the native population is Mycroft but I cannot make those sounds. Instead, I call him by a word in my language that describes the setting sun, dusk, over the sea. He has that energy and the colour of his hair. He calls me Scylla. It is not a description or a comparison; it is a name. After such a long, long time, I have a name again. 

He came to me with a proposition. Baskerville was being shaken down and my existance could be compromised - he offered to take me away and give me a new home, with him. His face conveyed such great sadness when he told me I would have to remain a captive, but I understood - I already know this world is not ready to face the like of me. But I would not be experimented on, my cell would be a fine habitat and anything I required, he would do his best to provide. A "silken prison", I believe is the term the native inhabitants use; I would be more of a pet than a prisoner. And I could see the sun. 

What could I say but 'yes'?

It took some time for my little palace to be built but I did not begrudge that. I like it here; after so long in my featureless cells, my room here is a palace. The one-way night-resistant windows hide my existance from the world even in darkness, but I can see the sky and the world outside. It's spaceous, I have sufficient oxygen, I'm warm enough here, my surfaces are comfortable to sleep on and he brings me delicious foods in variety I didn't think existed on this planet. And I have the computer.

The technology has advanced so much since I first crashed here (almost forty of this world's years ago, I learned. I cried when I learned that. I knew it had been a long time, but... ) The computer has a touchable screen, perfect for me to use. And it has a connection to the "Internet." I was very curious about that; back at Baskerville, some of the native inhabitants were fond of music and there had been a brief craze for a song about "the Internet is for porn," so I was curious to learn what that meant. 

Initially it appeared to be about mating practices, which I was very curious about anyways. Their practices do not appear to be all that dissimilar from our own, for all the dissimilarity in our anatomies. I was quite intrigued. Then I came across some material that made me wonder if the native inhabitants had encountered people like me before? Possibly, and the ideas were definitely intriguing. After so long alone, I was touch-starved and my sunset companion seemed to understand that and returned my affections. Even so, would he understand this?

In the end, it was one of those things that 'just happened,' and it was quite satisfactory for both of us. It's added another dimension to our relationship. I am still a captive, but I am comfortable, cared for, and loved. I love him in return, and care for him in the ways that I can. I am not unhappy. 

Then I learned of a curious coincidence. My sunset companion had an unexpected visitor one day, whom I was surprised to recognise as the night-haired companion of my healer, who had infiltrated Baskerville. It turned out, this man was my love's younger sibling, from a clutch laid seven years later. And his lifemate was my healer. 

Huh! Small world.


End file.
